"Hey, wanna get the lowdown on... " a Bratislava Travel Page by CliffClaven

Old Cliffie first visited Bratislava more than 35 years ago, when it was still part of Czechoslovakia. Journeys across the Iron Curtain took some planning in those days, and old Cliffie first had to waste a morning finding the Czech Embassy in Vienna to get his visa. The following day he rose long before dawn to venture out into a bitterly cold Vienna morning to take the bus to Bratislava. Most of the journey was spent at the border, where grim guards in heavy coats and fur caps stamped their feet while passports were checked and baggage inspected. Old Cliffie spent a miserable day tramping through Bratislava, wondering how he could spend the equivalent of the few dollars he had changed and wishing he didn't have to wait until evening for the bus back to Vienna.

His most recent visit was in mid-summer instead of mid-winter. The temperature was up in the 30s - or if you are American, in the 90s - and old Cliffie moved effortlessly from beerhall to bar to beerhall in search of the perfect combination of beer and ambiance. He was gratified to notice that all those old women with the string bags queuing outside the food shops 35 years ago seemed to have been replaced by svelte young Slovaks who wouldn't have looked out of place clubbing on Ibiza.